Arizona Chickens

[Bryanshantel]

we live north of pensacola

 

[Bryanshantel]

I am not selling fertile eggs right now. All fertile eggs are going in my incubator and fertility is unfortunately very low! The males are not doing their jobs. As an aside, I usually don't sell fertile eggs anyway, only chicks or started birds.

how do you make a hen stop going broody. My silkie seems to always be broody and when I try to remove her from the nest she turns nasty. Then next thing I know as soon as another hen has laid an eggs she kicks that one off and starts hatching. I don't have the heart to tell her there is no rooster it's never going to hatch

 

[Bryanshantel]

Does your silkie get nasty when she is broody? Have you ever let her raise some chicks? I got the silkie breed because of their overall usefulness. Good egg layers, good meat chickens, good mothers, and best of all good personality so my six children could pet them. It all started out great even the rooster was friendly. The kids would sit in the chicken run and the chickens would come and sit in their laps to be petted. Then the girls went broody after the rooster got killed by a chicken hawk and it was spring so I thought why not it will be cute to watch chicks follow the moms around. I got four fertile eggs from my mom and all hatched. So my two silkies did a great job co-parenting. they took turns on the nest so the other could get some exercise and eat. And when the eggs hatched they also took turns watching and feeding the babies. It was a perfect world I was wondering why anyone uses an incubator! Then the chicks were going outside and the kids wanted to hold them. They went in the chicken pen and the moms would not let anyone around the chicks. I told the kids to wait until they were older and they did. they tried it again. The chicks started to come up to the kids and then the moms freaked out and started bulling the kids. They didn't hurt them but they were flapping and making their displeasure known. Now that the chicks are grown we can't get near them and the silkies are still nasty. Any idea what I did wrong?

 

[City farm]

Here is Claire with 3 isbar's and a WA, WA mix with cream legbar

I vote this to be picture of the week. I LOVE IT

Oh, thank you so much.. It is such a blast to watch her puff up, then a little head comes out to see what is happening

 

[City farm]

I've gotten all of my Cornish Xs from Ideal.  They are the only hatchery I've found that will do smaller orders while still having VERY reasonable shipping costs.  They are in Texas...which isn't TOO far away.  My only issue is that they put in a ton of "packing peanuts," so my order of 10 will usually arrive as an order of 17-20 chicks. 

Garden talk:  in ground or raised beds?  I've had great success with raised beds, horrible results with in-ground (dug down over 12", native soil replaced with amended garden soil).  Plus, digging down the Tucson Mnt foothills soil is very difficult, even with a jackhammer (and I usually only have a pick axe and my strong back doing the work).  How about y'all? 

We have always ordered with other local chicken folk to share the shipping cost.. It would be nice if we would of received 2 extra.. I only got 1 extra, 1 time...

Because of our chciken's, duck's and dog's just about all of our garden is raised bed's.. Our basil, eggplant, oh and our chocolate mint from mom3cuties, still doing ok,

 

[City farm]

desertmarcy Cheryl seems to be going broody again, I might need eggs from you, of i can't break her. Anyone planing a trip to andfro? What fertile eggs do you have?

I am not selling fertile eggs right now. All fertile eggs are going in my incubator and fertility is unfortunately very low! The males are not doing their jobs. As an aside, I usually don't sell fertile eggs anyway, only chicks or started birds.

Hopefully when we are in need of chicks, we would love some chicks from you..

 

[City farm]

Waffle garden is a sunken garden, dug in 1x1 or 2x2' squares.

After a little more reading, I'll be doing the more typical sunken garden, not little squares. I don't want to have to maintain squares! What happens if I use only partially composted run cleanings as a bottom layer in either a raised bed or sunken garden? It's primarily rice hulls, pine shavings, and of course, chicken droppings. But a much smaller portion of droppings compared to rice hulls.

I would love to do a above ground in a "u" shape, put the compost into the middle.

 

[DesertChic]

We performed the final candling on my NN eggs last night and put the eggs in lockdown. I'm down to 16 eggs from the original 20...and now I'm just hoping for a really good hatch rate. This is so exciting! I was watching the eggs twitch today as the chicks inside move around. I could become addicted to hatching eggs.

 

[desertmarcy]

Waffle garden is a sunken garden, dug in 1x1 or 2x2' squares.

After a little more reading, I'll be doing the more typical sunken garden, not little squares. I don't want to have to maintain squares!

What happens if I use only partially composted run cleanings as a bottom layer in either a raised bed or sunken garden? It's primarily rice hulls, pine shavings, and of course, chicken droppings. But a much smaller portion of droppings compared to rice hulls.

Oh, thanks for the photos, that explains the name! With our heavy monsoon rainstorms, I can't imagine the edges would hold up. I think if you put your partially composted material on the bottom and composted on top, it will be fine. The bottom layer will continue to decompose and if it's deeper than the roots grow, the roots won't burn if there is too much manure.

 

[desertmarcy]

how do you make a hen stop going broody. My silkie seems to always be broody and when I try to remove her from the nest she turns nasty. Then next thing I know as soon as another hen has laid an eggs she kicks that one off and starts hatching. I don't have the heart to tell her there is no rooster it's never going to hatch

Put them in a wire bottomed cage with air circulating underneath and no bedding. That works for the breeds I keep, usually 4-5 days, sometimes less, in such a situation and they quit. However some breeds, like silkies, are known to be excessively broody. I don't know how well it would work for them. I try to keep birds that don't have that tendency. Some people like it so they use the broodies to hatch eggs.